A Long Explore

We're big fans of A.A. Milne around here, at least as far as his portrayal of Winnie-the-Pooh. No Disney books for us, thank you very much, not about Pooh Corner, anyway. They can't touch Milne's humor and dialogue. One of my favorite phrases that he uses in the book is when the characters go on "a long explore." There's something about that phrase that encompasses the whole experience of wandering- the new discoveries, the excitement of the unknown, the totality of the experience, not just the act of tromping around in the woods, but a long walk with purpose.

When my husband decided to go back to school at the age of 30, I knew this is what we were in for. A long explore. While many of my friends were settling down into the homes they'd be in for the long haul, thinking about the next ten years of schooling for their kids, committing to things past a year at a time, we have continued on with the art of transitioning into our 30's. These last three and a half years in NC have been amazing, but we knew when we got here they were just the first leg of the long explore. That somewhere on the horizon would be another move, most likely to a place with which we were unfamiliar. So, like good explorers, we set up camp, ate, drank and were merry, but always in the back of our minds wondering when it would be time to break camp and move on.

That time is now.

Just a few weeks ago my husband received an offer for a postdoctoral position in Wisconsin. The Midwest. This woman has never lived further than 2 hours west of the Atlantic ocean.  I have never lived in a land-locked state. I have never seen a Great Lake. My husband has never really experienced below-freezing temps and doesn't know the joys of ice-skating. My son thinks a big snowfall is when you can't see the grass anymore. Oh, he has no idea.

So, we are busy around here. Busy getting our house ready for the market, sifting through possible living scenarios out in Wisconsin, harassing colleagues out there to give me the 411 on life in Madison, living life as much as usual while we're still here and praying hard for our adoption to go through before we move so we don't have to start over with our paperwork. Basically, all the preparations one needs for the next leg of the journey, besides the goodbyes. They can wait a few more months. 

And if it's one thing this leg has taught me it's that no time is too short a time to be worth it, as long as you're willing to live in the now. I can be confident in moving to this next place because I've seen how good we can have it in such a short span of time. We are moving on having made lasting friendships, having found things we loved to do that we never expected and stronger as a family for the time we've spent here.

So, as much as it'll be hard to say goodbye this summer (and I have had the Boyz II Men song on said subject repeating in my head for days now), this place has left it's mark on us. A mark so clear that we're hoping that when the final leg of the long explore comes, it'll lead us right back here for the permanent settlement.

Until we know though, we're going to live each day here with just as much buy-in as we did a month ago even as we prepare to get back on the road. And we'll do the same in Wisconsin until it's time to pick up camp that one, likely, final time for a while.

After all, there's still much to be discovered in this life and a long explore has been just what we needed.

Overwhelmed...In a Good Way

Just a few weeks ago I had the chance to do two much needed things.

One, I went on a hike with a dear friend. The hike was not for exercise, it wasn't for exploration. It was for the sole purpose of yelling. She and I walked for about a 1/2 hour to a secluded location on the Eno River here in NC. We spent a minute or two feeling awkward and making sure no one else was around and wondering who might go first. Then, we yelled. Sometimes we yelled thoughts, sometimes questions for God. Other times, we just let out the tension inside.

And friends, it was so good. The foolishness of being out in the middle of the woods screaming became nothing compared to the miraculously cathartic moment we both experienced. It was obvious that God was listening and that he was not afraid of what we had to say.

Second, I went on a day of retreat. I packed up my backpack, put on one of my favorite books on cd and drove two hours. Two hours away from all the stress of waiting for a baby, all the responsibilities of hearth and home and job. I turned my cell phone off and didn't even bring my computer. And for 8 hours I didn't talk to anyone but God. I hiked, sang, napped, listened, sipped way too many cups of coffee, sat on ice cold benches in the woods and dark, warm, meditative rooms inside. I ate a good lunch that I didn't have to prepare. And I wrote. After two full months of no writing, I filled my notebook with 28 pages. Pages filled with emotions (which we all know are hard to identify sometimes), questions, anger, sadness and yes, even hopes and joys for the first time in a long time.  My most recent blog post was the result of that day.

And leading up to that day I had asked a few people to be praying for me. To help me want to actually spend that day away with God. To be willing to be honest with Him about how I was feeling. To give me hope that He is there in the midst of what felt like abandonment.

The freedom of having people in your life with whom you can be totally honest and then also trust to be totally honest back even if it's hard is sort of indescribable. But people like this are in my life and, man, have I felt overwhelmed after inviting them into this. In a really good way.

Over these past weeks, after my breaking point, I have felt surrounded. After my last post, my explanation of where I've been for two months, the comments, emails, texts and phone calls were such physical, tangible evidence of the gifts I've been given in the people around me. And on top of that, that day I took away and the days since then have been full. Full of peace, full of hope, full of desire to spend time with God, full of the knowledge that God is with us in this and that He, too, is waiting and sad and hopeful all in one. That he's not withholding some huge gift from us out of vindictiveness or to teach us some elusive lesson, but that He's here beside us, just like these friends, waiting, offering comfort, steering us towards hope. I can't describe what a freeing lesson that has been. To trust again that he's not causing us this pain but that He is here in the pain...well, it's a relief, is what it is.

So thanks. Thanks to those of you who read this blog faithfully and encourage me to keep writing. Thanks to those of you who send me little emails or notes reminding me that you, too, are waiting eagerly for the next chapter of our story. Thanks for sharing your stories and prayers with me so that I can pray for you- it's a privilege. Thanks for your honesty, when it's hard and when it's sweet. Both are welcome. Thanks for being God's presence around us when we weren't sure where He was.  I have found hope again and I have been reminded of how good I've got it. I'm overwhelmed.

And sometimes being overwhelmed is exactly what you need. 

Asking for Spaghetti

They call it "transition". That point in labor when a woman's body goes through its final, most agonizing changes before she is ready to push. It's that moment when you think it will never end, when you think it virtually impossible that your body can survive what you are going through. And it's the point where even the most stubborn of us women, the ones most committed to going natural, consider the drugs.

That's why for many people who choose this route, there's a code word. As Reed and I prepared for a labor that we hoped would go natural, we were told to find a word that had no relation at all to the process. A word I'd have to specifially use to ask for drug intervention, rather than just saying "yes" to the offer of an epidural or screaming out "give me the drugs!" in the midst of an interminable contraction.

We chose "spaghetti." I don't know why. Maybe we assumed that Italian food would be the furthest thing from my mind while I labored. (For the record, we were wrong. I don't remember a lot about labor but I do remember asking how soon after it I could eat. I was pretty darn freakin' hungry.)

Then came the big day. Or, should I say, the big "middle of the night." And like most women who have gone natural, I hit that point where I thought there was no possible way I could continue without the likely result of my body splitting into two. I can remember just a few specific things about that moment: the helpless look on my husband's face and how hard it was to catch my breath. I remember wanting the drugs and asking for them and my husband dutifully, if hesitantly, telling me I had to use the right word. And I knew he was right. I had to ask for spaghetti.

When it came down to it, I didn't ask for it. That moment of getting outside the pain to make the decision gave me what I needed to push past it and wait it out. And let me be clear- I'm not saying there was anything noble or heroic in my choice- if anything, my refusal was probably yet another shining example of my twin vices of stubbornness and pride. But, refuse I did. And I was glad of it - we turned the corner shortly after and had our son in our arms less than an hour later.

In about two weeks we'll have been on the waiting list with our adoption agency for 12 months. Add to that the months and years of waiting and asking and it's been over four years that we have been waiting for this baby. Four years.

And these last few months? The months during which I haven't blogged, not even once? They have been some of the hardest months of my life. I have felt angry, exhausted, frustrated, sad and hopeless. I have felt distant from and abandoned by a God I have loved and served for almost 30 years. I have felt cynical when people speak of Him as faithful and loving.  He has seemed silent and I have felt alone. I have sat in my alone-ness and not told anyone. Not friends, not my husband, not my God.


A few weeks ago, I had one of those moments. A moment of "transition". When I felt I couldn't breathe, when I didn't know how I could go on waiting on this adoption, how I could continue to mourn the loss of our baby and deal with the lack of closure on our infertility. The pain was too acute. And I told someone. Actually, I told a few someones. People I knew wouldn't just offer trite words of encouragement. People who would let me be angry and confused and who would enter into that pain with me.

And in the opening up to others, I felt the first stirring of God in this. And I sensed him saying "Will you just say the word, already?"

Just as in labor, I had two choices. I could push through or I could ask for spaghetti.


In my stubbornness in my first labor, I think it was ultimately good that I didn't say the words. But this "labor" is different. This whole "pregnancy" has been different. I feel like I've been pregnant for years and that my labor has lasted for months. So this time, I'm asking for some spaghetti. With meatballs, thank you very much. There is only so much pain the human body can take without labor progressing, you know.

And any stubbornness and pride I have right now, any reliance on my own strength, is just plain foolish. I need God to help me, to sustain my hope and strength during "transition". I cannot do this alone. I have tried the last few months and I am damn near exhausted. I need to be told that it's almost time to push. In the meantime, maybe I'll let the spaghetti kick in a little so I can relax. Maybe I'll actually push into God's presence and continue to let my friends in on what's been going on.

Call it carbo-loading. But I'm planning on getting as much help as I can now, fueling up for that last final stage of pushing, whenever it comes. And yes, like any rational laboring woman, I am hoping and praying that it comes soon. No one wants to be pregnant forever.

When the Wait is Not Alone

Just last week my son and I were having one of those moments. You know, those sweet, warm moments when your kid is this real person and the conversation you are having is something you could only dream of having during those screaming, tantrumy, unreasonable earlier moments in his young life.

"Mom", he said, "when are we gong to get my baby brother and sister?"
"I don't know, buddy."
"Will it be soon?"
"I don't know. I still hope so."
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"I'm really ready to be a big brother."

I know you are, kid. Believe me. I see the way your eyes light up in the store when some other recently blessed family is pushing around a little baby in a stroller.

I see your hesitating steps when we pass them and how you want to reach out and touch that little one and play and dream of life with siblings.

I love the way you think of our little neighbor as your little sister. How you ask if I can invite her over to play with you, even though she is only a year old and I hear how you talk about "sweet baby May" to everyone you meet, proudly, as if she is yours somehow.

How you hold her hand and lead her around the yard and pull leaves out of her mouth so she doesn't choke and how you laugh and delight in her just like the adults do in her life.

How you read books to her when we go places together in the backseat, all the while dreaming of when that baby strapped in the middle will be your own little sibling. I see you. 

I pray along with you every night when you ask God, yet again, to "please bring us a baby brother and sister." And I ache with you those nights when you don't feel strong enough to pray it. Sometimes I don't either, so I understand. I understand.

I hear the longing in your voice when you talk about our family's future. About what we will do when it's more than just the three of us. Of what car trips and vacations and decorating the Christmas tree and simple family dinners will be like. I love that you dream all the time and that your dreams are never empty of hope.

Most of all, I love that I am not waiting alone. That you are as much a part of this as your Daddy and I. That when we suffer the disappointments that are an inevitable part of this process, you somehow know and you sweetly comfort us. How do you do that? How in the world, at 6 years old, can you possibly know what we need?

I know you can't read this yet. Maybe someday you will. Maybe by then our family will look different and you will have forgotten how long the wait was and will only remember the reality of its completion.

In the meantime, hold on little man. Keep waiting with your mama. I can't promise you anything, but I know this: it's always better not to wait alone.

The First Gray

A few nights ago, exactly two weeks before my 34th birthday, I found my first gray hair. I don't normally comb my head looking for signs of impending age but it was RIGHT THERE. Sticking up off my scalp. Screaming at the mirror- "look at me, look at me!". And I panicked. I did. For at least a whole minute. My husband, of course, patiently examined it for me to confirm whether it was, in fact, a gray hair or just a random extremely blond one reflecting the light. Yeah, because I have those.

After the panic subsided, I sat back and wondered exactly why I panicked. I've been in staff work for 11 years now and something I've always told my graduating seniors is that their twenties are going to be harder than they think. That transition from having magically wonderful long breaks every few months of one's life, of a schedule that includes long meals with friends every day, easy-to-find friends and community- well, it can pretty much disappear about 24 hours after graduation.  The twenties are filled with goodbyes and transitions. I said goodbye to the best college roommates possible, a faith community that shaped me in uncountable ways, a campus I had fallen in love with, the home and town I grew up in, the idea of ever living with my parents again, being single, my personal space and the vague illusion that I was still somehow young enough to have few responsibilities. I transitioned to new homes, marriage, parenthood, jobs, friendships and an increasing awareness of my own smallness in the vast scale of the world. Much of this was good, but it is also exhausting to be in constant flux.

When I turned 30 I rejoiced. I looked forward to a potentially calmer decade. Of course, right around that time we decided that Reed would pursue grad school and we'd make another huge transition by leaving our church, neighborhood, city, jobs and friends to move from Virginia to North Carolina. Despite all the change, however, this has felt different. It has felt calmer and sweeter than most of the earlier transitions. I have felt more rooted, more relaxed about the transience of our life. My pastor recently said that he hopes our souls are more rested at 80 than they are at 25. My first thought, "Well, they'd freaking better be!" thankfully didn't fly out of my mouth. I ruminated to myself instead. How sad would it be to hit that age and be more restless than I was 10 years ago?

The thing is that when I really thought about that gray hair, after what I can only deduce to have been a full-scale-societal-pressure-influenced freakout, I thought it might actually be a little bit beautiful. Another notch on that perpetual wall where we measure how grown up we're getting. Aging has this nasty connotation to it in America -  that something wrong or bad or evil is happening to us, that it's something we have to arrest at all costs. Every beauty commercial out there is geared toward telling me how to stay young-looking. But why? Why should I yearn to look the way I did 10 years ago, why should I wish that my life would stand still or that my face and head shouldn't reflect the ups and downs of the life I'm living? If I want my soul to be more rested at the age of 80 than it was at 25, this is yet another area of change that I have to embrace. Like the craters and pock-marks my own soul has suffered, my body will have to endure some changes, too.

It's up to me not to "age gracefully" (does anyone else feel like that's a condescending term, anyway?) but to live life each day, gray hair sprouting and wrinkles forming around my eyes, with my eyes pointed in the direction of my Lord, not at what's happening to my face or what used to be in my life. Because the reality is that I wouldn't want to be 25 again. I like who I am. I like being in my mid-thirties and that my stability is not rooted right now in the fact that we've "settled" somewhere. The truth is that we haven't. There are still more adventures in our future and we know not where or when. That should terrify me. But the internal chaos that accompanied all the transitions when I was younger is increasingly absent. The ways my soul has changed make the unknowns and the growing up less painful. And way more fun. Some people say it's all downhill after 30. Well, I'll just hop on a sled and enjoy the ride, then. Sounds like a lot less work than climbing uphill all the time.

Proverbs 20:29 says "the glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old." 

I say bring on the splendor.

The Christmas Creep

It's the night before Thanksgiving and I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping. The last time I was in a store on Black Friday I was a sporting goods store employee dealing with harried, rude customers with a nasty turkey hangover fighting over the newest Columbia jacket. (You know you had one. You wore it every day to high school with jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt.)  I vowed as I left the mall that afternoon that I would never be responsible for subjecting any other human being to what I experienced that day. And I've kept my vow.

Here's the deal. I do my best to be done with Christmas shopping by November 1st. Sometimes that happens, sometimes life prevents it. Most years this has meant that I don't have to deal with the crowds or even the decorations and pop Christmas music being played over and over. And over. For the record, if you are sick of that music, think about the people who hear the corporate holiday cd played thousands of times over the course of the season. I'm surprised they don't all rebel and start throwing merchandise at the speakers (or us) by December 1st. Some of you might be thinking I'm crazy and why in the world wouldn't I want to shop to Justin Bieber's version of some previously sacred tune? The answer is simple: I want the Christmas season to actually be about Christmas. And the way America is going, that's getting harder and harder. The Christmas creep means that I've got to be finished shopping before Halloween to avoid the overblown Christmasland of the stores. Really, people?

I want to make something clear. I love Christmas. The reason I shop so early and am finished with that aspect of it is because I love Christmas so much that I actually want to be able to enjoy it. To remember what it's actually about. To not have December be my busiest, most stressful month of the year. To let my son see a mom who is just resting, soaking in the joy of the expectation of her Savior, rather than running from store to store frantically buying stuff, so busy that I even forget to do our advent calendar with him in the mornings. I want what he experiences in that final month before Christmas not to rile him up for what will be under the tree but to be a chance for him to continue to learn about this God who loved him enough to send his Son to earth in the form of a little baby- to really ponder that unbelievable, world-altering, life-changing good news. To cultivate in him at a young age the idea that Christmas isn't about Macy's or Santa or, to be blunt, him. I want the story of Christmas to saturate our household so much that when the day actually arrives the presents under the tree aren't the focus because it's not what we've been waiting for. Jesus is the focus because HE is what we've been waiting for. For the record, this is why we don't do Santa or Elf on the Shelf around here. I never want my son to think that Christmas morning is about him or that it's some kind of reflection of how well he has behaved this year. We give gifts because we give them. Not because he deserves them.

And I've decided that there is one kind of Christmas creep that I should be supporting. Advent is this beautiful time when we often get better about creating and implementing family traditions that point to our Savior. And why, for goodness sake, shouldn't that creep into the rest of my year? I should be creating these types of traditions for February and June and October, not just late November when we're setting up the advent calendar and manger scene and wondering, yet again, what this Jesse tree thing is. Sure, we talk about God around here, we say our prayers, we discuss what we learn in Sunday school and read the Jesus Storybook Bible to our son like everyone else our age seems to do, but what daily practices are we implementing into the life of our family to make sure that we are not just worshiping our own family life but that we are actually worshiping God?

This advent, with the shopping done and the decorations going up this coming weekend, I'm looking forward to peaceful mornings over coffee to ponder this question. How can the real Christmas creep into the rest of our year? How can I cultivate an atmosphere of joy and expectation of encountering the living God well after we take down the tree and turn off the Christmas lights?

And how, for the love of all that is good and holy, can I avoid hearing any more Justin Bieber music ever again? 

Battle of the Sexes

I started second grade in a brand new school, good old Austin Road. When you start a new school, you tend to also start a new bus route. While the bus was never my favorite form of transportation, I remember making a friend early on that year. A sweet girl by the name of Jackie. I would get on the bus before her and wait anxiously until she joined me and we could enjoy the rest of the ride together. Those first 10 minutes alone were some of the least favorite of my day because, let's be honest, you just never know what's going to happen on a school bus.

The thing about Jackie was, she was kind of a tomboy, too. She played sports and liked to spend recess running around just like I did. And I remember this one conversation we had on the way to school more than anything else we ever did together. There we were, 7 years old, talking about why the boys in our class seemed to not want to talk or play with us and how we didn't always feel comfortable hanging out with the other girls. (At the time, I didn't realize that particular conundrum would become a theme in my life.) So, we devised a plan. Our devious little minds decided that if we were to actually walk into Mrs. DelGrosso's class talking about the Yankee game the night before, the boys might actually let us play with them. It wasn't hard for either of us to talk about it, both our dads were pretty obsessed with baseball and the games were always on at home. We'd both been to Yankee Stadium(the old one in the Bronx) and seen games in person and genuinely enjoyed the game. I think the plan even worked for a time. The boys couldn't resist chiming in on our, I'm sure, startlingly poignant observations about the most recent matchup. We had moved over to their turf, the world of sports. We were interesting. We were ok. For girls, that is.

It's interesting to me how often this memory comes back to me. For years I remembered it just as a silly story, as a small triumph in manipulation, in the power of becoming all things to all people. But more recently it reminds me of a deeper issue in our world, this way in which the "things of women" are often portrayed as less interesting, more silly, certainly less worth the time for most of us than the "things of men". I use quote marks because I hate that we put these interests into gendered categories at all. It's the same problem that labeled me, an athletic girl, as a tomboy or that makes people worry when a little boy likes dance or art more than his soccer games. The same issue that made me proud of being a tomboy and terrified of being a "girly girl." That made me struggle with feeling thankful that I was born a woman. Yes, I confess it. I've added to the problem just as much as the next person.  
 Don't hear me wrong. I am not trying to argue that there are no differences between men and women. I think there are beautiful ways in which we often approach life from different angles and we need each other to understand the world more fully because of that. But when my son says things like "I can't get that, it's a girl color" or tells me that the girls won't play with him at school, I wonder why it has been so easy for this divide to take root. I wonder at which point his friends will start to make fun of girls for the things they like to play. I wonder if they'll say things that I heard from boys growing up, things about my general inferiority or silliness or those backhanded compliments along the line of "you're different from other girls, you like sports" or "you can be one of the guys".

We own a board game called "Battle of the Sexes." I have no idea who got this game for me, but whoever it was no doubt thought it would be perfect. After all, half my life could probably be summed up by that phrase. The point of the game is for men to have to answer questions that women would typically know the answer to and vice versa. Um, can anybody say stereotypes?! Here's the deal with this game: every single time we have played it with people, the women have won. And every single time the men have complained that the game is unfair. It's my opinion that it probably is unfair, but only because it's reflective of a culture that makes it necessary for me to know more about "guy stuff" than men have to know about "girl stuff." The way we do gender is, a lot of the time, messed up.

Now, as a parent, I want my little boy to feel free to be who he is. To not feel bound by certain things, like the color of a toy or shirt, to learn how to respect the differences between him and the little girls he plays with and to not grow into the perspective that one gender is inherently better than the other. I want the little girls he is friends with to be given the chance to be themselves and not be at risk of being called a tomboy or girly-girl or needing to say or do a certain thing so the boys will think they are cool enough to hang out with. I want toy manufacturers to think hard about ways to engage kids that don't just play into stereotypes, challenging kids to explore all facets of their imagination, to put things on the market like this new female-oriented engineering toy, GoldiBlox, you can read about here or watch the video below. . If I had a daughter, you'd better believe I'd be pre-ordering. I might just get it for my son, in spite of his aversion to pink as a girl color.

Mostly, I don't want my kid to ever have to feel like this is a battle, that there is some inherent war going on between him and the girls in his life. I lived like that for way too long myself. It's a whole lot easier to just go ahead and be yourself and love the people around you for who they are than to constantly fight. To speak truth when necessary and to refuse to go along with the status quo when it's wrong, to take those parenting moments when you have the opportunity to impart some huge piece of wisdom on the subject and use them well. To refuse to get into those conversations, seemingly harmless, that jokingly bash the opposite gender or perpetuate harmful stereotypes on either side. To be light in one area in a world that still has a long way to go to be a just and safe place to live for all people.